Stem cell treatment for heart failure takes small step forward

Los Angeles Times | Eryn Brown

Photo: Scientists are learning more about how to harness stem cells to reverse heart failure, but treatments won't be widely available right away. Above, a stem cell researcher. (Dennis Drenner / For The Times / May 23, 2012) 

Researchers at the Technion- Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, Israel, reported Tuesday that they had removed skin cells from two patents with heart failure, returned those cells to an embryonic state, and then transformed them into beating heart cells that could communicate with the patients’ existing heart tissue.

“We have shown that it is possible to take skin cells from an elderly patient with advanced heart failure and end up with his own beating cells in a laboratory dish that are healthy and young — the equivalent to this stage of his heart cells when he was just born,” study leader Dr. Lior Gepstein said in a statement.

The discovery marks a small step toward a long-sought goal: using stem cells to regrow the cardiac tissue that is damaged in heart attacks. (The Times reported on the quest in February, 2011.) But it doesn’t mean that patients with heart failure are likely to get shiny new hearts through stem cell treatments anytime soon.

Several hurdles stand in the way of using induced pluripotent stem cells, as the skin-derived cells are called, to reverse heart attack damage. The Israeli researchers acknowledged several. Such cells are known to spin out of control and cause cancer. Stem cell-derived cardiac cells have also had problems coordinating with normal heart rhythms. The team will need to be able to generate larger numbers of the cells before it can test the treatment, and will need to perfect transplant methods. 
Read more:  http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-stem-cells-heart-failure-20120523,0,786432.story